100 books like The Howling Storm

By Kenneth W. Noe,

Here are 100 books that The Howling Storm fans have personally recommended if you like The Howling Storm. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of A Government of Our Own: The Making of the Confederacy

George C. Rable Author Of Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War

From my list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been researching and writing about the era of the American Civil War for something over half a century. My passion for the subject remains strong today, having just published my seventh book. Given the seemingly endless amounts of material from soldiers and civilians alike, I have enjoyed deeply researching neglected subjects and writing about them in a way that appeals to both historians and general readers. For me the Civil War never grows stale, there are always little-used sources to research and fresh ideas to consider. The American Civil is omnipresent in my life—not excluding weekends and holidays!   

George's book list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles

George C. Rable Why did George love this book?

A Government of Our is a richly textured history of the formation of the Confederate States of America replete with high drama and compelling characters. 

This is political history in the grand narrative tradition grounded in excellent research and provocative assessments. Davis renders sharp judgments on his subjects in often pungent prose. 

This is a book to savor and enjoy as the author presents his story in loving detail. Here is a fascinating mix of the personal and the political, the humorous and the sad, the ironic and the bizarre.

By William C. Davis,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked A Government of Our Own as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Recounts the formation of the Confederacy, looks at the political forces that shaped it, and discusses the impact of slavery.


Book cover of Seasons of War: The Ordeal of a Southern Community, 1861-1865

George C. Rable Author Of Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War

From my list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been researching and writing about the era of the American Civil War for something over half a century. My passion for the subject remains strong today, having just published my seventh book. Given the seemingly endless amounts of material from soldiers and civilians alike, I have enjoyed deeply researching neglected subjects and writing about them in a way that appeals to both historians and general readers. For me the Civil War never grows stale, there are always little-used sources to research and fresh ideas to consider. The American Civil is omnipresent in my life—not excluding weekends and holidays!   

George's book list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles

George C. Rable Why did George love this book?

I began reading Seasons of War while in a hospital waiting for my wife to come out of surgery. To my great surprise, I became so engrossed in this beautifully written and deeply moving book that it took my mind off any anxiety I was feeling. 

First of all, Sutherland evokes a time—1861 to 1865—and a place—Culpeper County, Virginia—that turned out to be the great crossroads of the American Civil War. The two sides camped in, marched through, and fought over this strategic piece of real estate. This is the story of soldiers and civilians, of military campaigns, and the home front.  

The book is filled with memorable figures from Jeb Stuart to Ulysses S. Grant to long-suffering women and children. Sutherland’s prose is venturesome, at times earthy, and always compelling.

By Daniel E. Sutherland,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Seasons of War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of Culpeper County, Virginia, is a unique one in Civil War history. Nestled in one of the South's most strategically important locations, it was occupied by the Northern army, recaptured by the Confederacy, and finally ceded to the North. Told largely through the diaries, papers, and correspondence of residents, common infantrymen, and such eminent personalities as Robert E. Lee, Walt Whitman, Ulysses S. Grant, Clara Barton, and Stonewall Jackson, all of whom spent time in Culpeper, this story wonderfully captures both the intimacy and grandeur of war.
Sutherland's account of the war is unlike any other. Both a…


Book cover of Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War

George C. Rable Author Of Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War

From my list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been researching and writing about the era of the American Civil War for something over half a century. My passion for the subject remains strong today, having just published my seventh book. Given the seemingly endless amounts of material from soldiers and civilians alike, I have enjoyed deeply researching neglected subjects and writing about them in a way that appeals to both historians and general readers. For me the Civil War never grows stale, there are always little-used sources to research and fresh ideas to consider. The American Civil is omnipresent in my life—not excluding weekends and holidays!   

George's book list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles

George C. Rable Why did George love this book?

As the title states, Elizabeth Varon’s book rests on the theme of deliverance, in this case the deliverance of the seceding states from slaveholder domination.

In an innovative, provocative, and utterly convincing fashion, Armies of Deliverance literally delivers on its promise to present a new history of the Civil War. With fresh material throughout, and careful attention to usually neglected moderate voices, Varon deftly weaves together military, political, and social history into a brilliantly conceived and highly original approach that will please a wide variety of readers.

By Elizabeth R. Varon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Armies of Deliverance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Loyal Americans marched off to war in 1861 not to conquer the South but to liberate it. In Armies of Deliverance, Elizabeth Varon offers both a sweeping narrative of the Civil War and a bold new interpretation of Union and Confederate war aims. Lincoln's Union coalition sought to deliver the South from slaveholder tyranny and deliver to it the blessings of modern civilization. Over the course of the war, supporters of black freedom built the case that
slavery was the obstacle to national reunion and that emancipation would secure military victory and benefit Northern and Southern whites alike. To sustain…


Book cover of The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War

George C. Rable Author Of Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War

From my list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been researching and writing about the era of the American Civil War for something over half a century. My passion for the subject remains strong today, having just published my seventh book. Given the seemingly endless amounts of material from soldiers and civilians alike, I have enjoyed deeply researching neglected subjects and writing about them in a way that appeals to both historians and general readers. For me the Civil War never grows stale, there are always little-used sources to research and fresh ideas to consider. The American Civil is omnipresent in my life—not excluding weekends and holidays!   

George's book list on the American Civil War beyond the usual battles

George C. Rable Why did George love this book?

From its wonderfully apropos title to its cautionary final paragraph, The Calculus of Violence is a deeply thoughtful and original analysis of who was killed and did the killing in the American Civil War—and why. 

Aaron Sheehan-Dean argues that a very bloody civil war could have been much bloodier. The book is powerful but never preachy because complex human beings with complex beliefs and motivations are always at the forefront. This superb work forces readers to rethink many supposedly settled questions about the American Civil War.

By Aaron Sheehan-Dean,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Calculus of Violence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Jefferson Davis Award
Winner of the Johns Family Book Award
Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award

"A work of deep intellectual seriousness, sweeping and yet also delicately measured, this book promises to resolve longstanding debates about the nature of the Civil War."
-Gregory P. Downs, author of After Appomattox

Shiloh, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg-tens of thousands of soldiers died on these iconic Civil War battlefields, and throughout the South civilians suffered terrible cruelty. At least three-quarters of a million lives were lost during the American Civil War. Given its seemingly indiscriminate mass destruction, this conflict is…


Book cover of Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can

Laurie Laybourn Author Of Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown

From my list on to help us face up to the environmental crisis.

Why am I passionate about this?

I research, write and speak about the global environmental emergency and the policies and politics we need to adequately respond. Drawing on a decade of experience in academia, activism, and policymaking, my work explores the leadership needed to transition to more sustainable and equitable societies while contending with the growing destabilisation resulting from the worsening environmental crisis. I’ve worked at a range of leading policy research organisations and universities and have won awards for my work. I’ve got a BSc in physics and an MPhil in economies from the University of Oxford. 

Laurie's book list on to help us face up to the environmental crisis

Laurie Laybourn Why did Laurie love this book?

I was one in a world of frustrated and increasingly anxious people back in 2018. Politicians just weren’t talking about the severity of the environmental crisis and the vast actions that we need (and can) undertake to tackle it. And then Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg and Fridays for the Future, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal, and the Sunrise Movement came along. Suddenly everyone was talking about it. This set of essays brings so many of those thinkers and doers together to give us an inspiring road map for getting out of the crisis and realizing a better world in the process. And it shows us that these movements are built on the shoulders of giants, particularly in the global south. 

By Guido Girgenti, Varshini Prakash,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Winning the Green New Deal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An urgent and definitive collection of essays from leaders and experts championing the Green New Deal—and a detailed playbook for how we can win it—including contributions by leading activists and progressive writers like Varshini Prakash, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Bill McKibben, Rev William Barber II, and more.

In October 2018, scientists warned that we have less than 12 years left to transform our economy away from fossil fuels, or face catastrophic climate change. At that moment, there was no plan in the US to decarbonize our economy that fast. Less than two years later, every major Democratic presidential candidate has embraced the…


Book cover of Majorie Harris Carr: Defender of Florida's Environment

Elizabeth Randall Author Of An Ocklawaha River Odyssey: Paddling Through Natural History

From my list on saving Florida from becoming an arid dump of toxic waste.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have lived in Florida since 1969, attended public school here, and received my Master’s degree from a state college. My husband, Bob Randall, a photographer and an entrepreneur, and I have written six nonfiction books about Florida. An Ocklawaha River Odyssey is our favorite. Kayaking the 56 miles of winding waterways became less of a research expedition and more of a spiritual journey as the ancient river cast its spell on us. From wildlife, including manatees and monkeys, to wild orchids and pickerelweed, the Ocklawaha provides more than exercise and recreation; it also touches your soul. I hope my writing and Bob’s photography provide that experience for our readers.

Elizabeth's book list on saving Florida from becoming an arid dump of toxic waste

Elizabeth Randall Why did Elizabeth love this book?

It is one of the few books about the woman who saved the Ocklawaha River (and the Florida aquifer) from the Cross Florida Barge Canal.

Marjorie Harris Carr, an unassuming woman from Micanopy, Florida, created the organization Florida Defenders of the Environment. It is an important sentry of environmental issues, including safeguarding the future of the Ocklawaha River.

By Peggy Macdonald,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Majorie Harris Carr as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of The Only Kayak: A Journey into the Heart of Alaska

Dave Atcheson Author Of Dead Reckoning: Navigating a Life on the Last Frontier, Courting Tragedy on Its High Seas

From my list on true Alaskan stories of adventure and inspiration.

Why am I passionate about this?

To me there is a connection to something larger than myself, an overriding sense of spirit that I only seem to encounter in the outdoors, beneath the canopy of old-growth forest, or within the gaze of ancient snow-capped peaks. Since arriving in Alaska over 30 years ago it is something I have continually sought among this state’s striking landscape and in many of my own adventures here. It's an attitude, a sensibility I also seek in the stories I read, an authenticity tied to place, but also an inclination toward hope and optimism, even a tenuous one, that we can all relate to; a sentiment I have always tried to incorporate into my own writing.

Dave's book list on true Alaskan stories of adventure and inspiration

Dave Atcheson Why did Dave love this book?

Though this book is 17 years old, it is still a compelling memoir about a young man’s journey to find his “place” in Alaska, and the exploits he has along the way. Heacox describes in elegant detail his paddling adventures, encounters with wildlife, his work as a ranger, and his struggle with humanity and how we are all, including himself, tampering with the natural world we love. A wonderful personal adventure interspersed with rich characters, history, and internal conflict.

By Kim Heacox,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Only Kayak as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, Kim Heacox, writing in the tradition of Abbey, McPhee, and Thoreau, discovers an Alaska reborn from beneath a massive glacier, where flowers emerge from boulders, moose swim fjords, and bears cross crevasses with Homeric resolve. In such a place Heacox finds that people are reborn too, and their lives begin anew with incredible journeys, epiphanies, and successes. All in an America free of crass commercialism and overdevelopment.

Braided through the larger story are tales of gold prospectors and the cabin they built sixty years ago; John Muir and his intrepid terrier, Stickeen; and a dynamic geology…


Book cover of All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West

M.M. Holaday Author Of The Open Road

From my list on following the open road to discover America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up a fan of an evening news segment called “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” Kuralt spotlighted upbeat, affirmative, sometimes nostalgic stories of people and places he discovered as he traveled across the American landscape. The charming stories he told were only part of the appeal; the freedom and adventure of being on the open road ignited a spark that continues to smolder. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are our annual family road trips, and I still jump at the chance to drive across the country.

M.M.'s book list on following the open road to discover America

M.M. Holaday Why did M.M. love this book?

The physical journey as a metaphor for personal growth and enlightenment is no better accomplished than in this book on the environment. Gessner takes two very different authors, Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey, and weaves their perspectives together as he embarks on his own trip through their worlds and through his own American West. Highly educational in a style that is lively and readable.

By David Gessner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked All the Wild That Remains as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Archetypal wild man Edward Abbey and proper, dedicated Wallace Stegner left their footprints all over the western landscape. Now, award-winning nature writer David Gessner follows the ghosts of these two remarkable writer-environmentalists from Stegner's birthplace in Saskatchewan to the site of Abbey's pilgrimages to Arches National Park in Utah, braiding their stories and asking how they speak to the lives of all those who care about the West.

These two great westerners had very different ideas about what it meant to love the land and try to care for it, and they did so in distinctly different styles. Boozy, lustful,…


Book cover of Natives and Exotics: World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific

Lin Poyer Author Of The Typhoon of War: Micronesian Experiences of the Pacific War

From my list on the indigenous experiences of WW2 in the Pacific Islands.

Why are we passionate about this?

We are three anthropologists who have focused decades of research on the cultures and histories of the beautiful part of the world known as Micronesia. We wrote this book when we realized that the many volumes of history on War in the Pacific focused on the combatants, and told us little of the experiences of the Islanders across whose lands, seas, and airspace the war was fought. Kwajalein, Enewetak, Pohnpei, Chuuk, Peleliu, Saipan, Guam, Tinian—these were not just battlegrounds, but also precious homelands. Our goal was to combine documentary history with interviews of more than 300 elders to tell the story of the war in Micronesia as it was experienced by Islanders who lived through it.

Lin's book list on the indigenous experiences of WW2 in the Pacific Islands

Lin Poyer Why did Lin love this book?

Bennett has produced an outstanding tour-de-force integrating the military history of the Central and Southwest Pacific with the new field of war and environment studies. Bennett goes beyond the immediate impact of combat to consider the military use of natural resources, the effect of bases on islands that never saw fighting, the movement of people, plants and diseases, and the politics of how Islander people and places were used in the war. From how foreign imaginations about the tropical environment affected military planning, to the conflict’s real long-term effects on lands and seas, this book adds essential depth to our view of the war years in this region.

By Judith A. Bennett,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Natives and Exotics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ambitious in its scope and scale, this environmental history of World War II ranges over rear bases and operational fronts from Bora Bora to New Guinea, providing a lucid analysis of resource exploitation, entangled wartime politics, and human perceptions of the vast Oceanic environment. Although the war's physical impact proved significant and oftentimes enduring, this study shows that the tropical environment offered its own challenges. At the heart of ""Natives and Exotics"" is the author's analysis of the changing visions and perceptions of the environment, not only among the millions of combatants, but also among the Islands' peoples and their…


Book cover of Cattle Colonialism: An Environmental History of the Conquest of California and Hawai'i

Christopher Michael Blakley Author Of Empire of Brutality: Enslaved People and Animals in the British Atlantic World

From my list on animal and environmental history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a scholar of environmental history with a focus on human-animal relationships. I’ve also studied the histories of slavery and the African Diaspora, and in my book I’ve fused approaches from these two fields to look at how human-animal relations and networks shaped the expansion of slavery and slave trading from West Africa to the Caribbean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. My scholarship is also an outgrowth of my teaching, and I regularly teach American environmental and cultural history at California State University, Northridge. I finished my PhD in history at Rutgers University, and my research has recently been funded by the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William & Mary.

Christopher's book list on animal and environmental history

Christopher Michael Blakley Why did Christopher love this book?

Cows are not typically centered in histories of imperialism and colonialism, but John Ryan Fischer presents the case that bovines transformed the societies of California Indians and native Hawaiians in the nineteenth century.

This book helped me think about how to connect histories of livestock and land seizures, and helps us think about animals as malleable creatures of empire that are repurposed by Indigenous nations.   

By John Ryan Fischer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cattle Colonialism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the nineteenth century, the colonial territories of California and Hawai'i underwent important cultural, economic, and ecological transformations influenced by an unlikely factor: cows. The creation of native cattle cultures, represented by the Indian vaquero and the Hawaiian paniolo, demonstrates that California Indians and native Hawaiians adapted in ways that allowed them to harvest the opportunities for wealth that these unfamiliar biological resources presented. But the imposition of new property laws limited these indigenous responses, and Pacific cattle frontiers ultimately became the driving force behind Euro-American political and commercial domination, under which native residents lost land and sovereignty and faced…


Book cover of A Government of Our Own: The Making of the Confederacy
Book cover of Seasons of War: The Ordeal of a Southern Community, 1861-1865
Book cover of Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War

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